Season 3, Episode 113 : Emma Foster-Geering

00:02
Emma, thank you so much for joining the Green Element Podcast. And you are the director of sustainability for Vivo Barefoot. And could you possibly give us a bit of an understanding about your organisation? And what it is you do that please?

00:19
Yeah, sure. Well, first of all, it's a pleasure to be asked so thanks for having me. We've had a lovely chat already - so let's hope we don't know we don't miss bits off. So I I've been with Vivo Barefoot now for just over a year and a half and I've been living in the UK for seven years and from Australia originally. And so I joined Vivo barefoot to take them from shoe business with a green tinge to green tinge with a shoe business if you understand what I mean, so yes, yeah, so they they had the ethic and the mindset of sustainability in the heart from the very very beginning. They they kind of originated out of another brand called Terra Planner, which I think he said you were familiar with. Yeah. Um, and basically, our co founders Asher Clark, Galahad Clark, seventh generation, clock, shoe business, family legacy, and they just realised after all these years and years that the only shoe that's worth making is a barefoot shoe. And I won't go into all the science around why that is, but you know, the kind of basic fundamental is that our foot was designed perfectly by nature to feel the ground sense the ground and basically kind of send sensory feeling around your body and then over all these years, we've clapped our feet in we've paired them up, you know, and we've put them in these uncomfortable footwear and we've changed the dynamic and we've ultimately made our foot and by proxy our bodies numb to nature to our feeling exposure and ultimately made ourselves unhealthy. So they just said, by principle, they you know, they won't make any other shoe now other than barefoot shoe. And out of that Vivo Barefoot has basically grown and new is really unique dynamic way. You don't get a customer of Vivo Barefoot you get fanatics like our can [SP?] stream and once you go barefoot you quite literally never go back it's a complete lifestyle change. And you don't know what you don't know until you start wearing barefoot footwear. So basically they did that and and already had that as their kind of USP and then they built basically a business around it, understanding all the kind of deep environmental and social issues in the footwear industry because that's obviously their bread and butter. So they're also very well not both of them. Galahad more so than Asher's, very, very spiritual and very in touch with indigenous wisdom. And thinking around how to just kind of really just go back to basics with how we how we exist in this world. And so we do lots of things like you know, Wim, Hof, ice bobbing and, you know, cacau ceremonies and all those kinds of things. It's just the standard dynamic of the culture of our organisation. And so yeah, so that that's kind of what the business has been. But what what I kind of came on to do was to really legitimise that and to really kind of say, if this is what we're saying, we are out to the world in terms of, you know, the buzz word sustainability, let's really make sure that is like really in the foundations of the structure, how we procure things, how we buy things, how we make things, how we sell things, how we do finance, how we govern the business, how we treat our employees, how we treat our customers, just tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, like let's be best in class and really set an example for how you know business can be not just less shit, but actually a net positive impact on like our world, both from a people perspective and a planet perspective.

04:22
And you have a history in the fashion industry, don't you? before this, so you're in a you're in a good place yet they haven't just employed a sustainability person. They've actually employed someone that understands the industry, because it is a complicated industry isn't it? It's not someone like I guess someone like me who works in sustainability couldn't just walk into the fashion industry. There have been an awful lot for me to learn.

04:51
Yeah, I mean, look when they were advertising for the role. There was a really, really amazing high calibre list of people that were applying for the job. As you can imagine, you know, they've done some awesome stuff and sustainability without even really trying. And I am slightly left to centre, my background's actually in engineering. And I grew up in a world in Australia pre-sustainability even being on the educational curriculum. You know, I was the kind of classic kid that got in trouble for just being irritated that the David Attenborough documentaries we were watching in the class weren't depicting what I was seeing in nature, just outside in my eyes, you know, I was growing up in an area where oil spills were regular plastic pollution was getting worse. Consumerism is a really big problem in Australia, and the way that we waste and dispose and we live well beyond our means is a huge problem. So I really despise being taught a rhetoric around geography and, and ultimately anthropology that wasn't connecting with the real world. So I studied engineering to kind of really understand how we got to the place that we got to in the way that we consume and build and develop, and then kind of later found out that this kind of growing area was called sustainability. I mean, in the past, so we've it's obviously been known as ethics or responsibility or, or even marketing. And I started to get my fingers more heavily into it. And I worked for about, I guess, about six years in the mining and fossil fuel construction industry, and really working with like the Chevron's and the shells of the world to what I thought was protect the environment, ironically, ended up being facilitating approvals and projects that were destroying the environment under a label, you know, we'll go down that rabbit hole. And they came back to try and do a PhD to think like, surely there has to be a better way. And after my first year of the PhD, got picked up to work at Burberry, and the luxury fashion house in London, had no idea who they were had to find out who they were. But I thought the opportunity to kind of influence potentially millions of lives by shifting one of the most prominent consumer facing brands was to pass up. And I then started to get really in the depths of the supply chain with Burberry and really down to like leather tanneries and chemical processing and right right right down the tears, and then moved over and went for Primark for nearly four years doing the same thing again. So I've been really privileged and also burdened to see the worst side of this industry around the world. So Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, China, Italy, Portugal, you name it, wherever we make stuff. I've been there, I've seen the dirty underbelly. And that's both a kind of heavy burden to carry. And, you know, the kind of onus is on me to make sure that I'm educating people that can't do that, that can't get in there and see that what the reality is behind the things that they buy.

08:07
And it still goes on, doesn't it?

08:09
Oh, 100%, a 100% worse now than ever, because no one's going out to visit them because of COVID.

08:17
Okay, all right. And I mean, how, this is quite a big question. And I'm not sure if you'll be able to answer, how do we how do we tackle that? I mean, what do we do? Yeah, have you got ideas?

08:31
I mean, it's a great question. And, and I think if I knew the answer I probably working for the UN by now maybe I wouldn't be I'm not sure. But, um, look, for me, there's multiple answers to that, right. And I think that my own pathway to assisting in the answer towards that is to really break down the barriers of inauthenticity that these corporations put up, so I think you can't really address what you don't know. And, and we really only know such a small minutiae of what these organisations do and who the real bad guys are. I mean, the bad guys aren't out there being Coca Cola. Like, let me put it that way. I mean, you can blame Coca Cola for however many atrocities you want to but there's so many faceless, nameless, you know, unbelievably powerful organisations that sit behind the reality of our life. I won't go down a kind of philosophical rabbit hole. But in the fashion industry specifically, I think that the consumer power has grown so much in the last few years. And this kind of want and demand for more sustainable options, and more sustainable business has been very powerful and ultimately, I think, very successful. And I think that, you know, even at Primark where I'm not the best advocate of what they do do, but I can say that they do. do something. He's extremely well, and we used to get written letters about plastic use, and they would make it onto the CEOs desk, you know, you would really, really be blown away by how much a letter or an email or a tweet or Instagram comment can actually make an influence on organisations, the more people keep adding to that the more than gets taken seriously and change happens.

10:25
So that's one takeaway for us is to write those letters or to tweet.

10:31
Another, you know, they really do matter. And I think that we've waited for far too long for regulation to take force in this industry. And it just isn't gonna happen. There's lots of reasons why it's not going to happen. But that the regulations around fashion brands that ultimately are allowed to push 95% of their impact into the supply chain that they don't own, it's not catching up anytime soon. So we need to make sure that the brands know their responsibility and take it seriously.

11:04
And so what does Vivo Barefoot do That's different?

11:09
Yeah, I mean, look, I think the really big thing is that the ethic is different. So from the very get-go, we haven't tried to retrofit sustainability or sustainable products or whatever into the business, like from the very start, it was, does this need to exist in the world? Yes, no? If it does, what is the best way to do it? And then what solutions aren't there right now? Let's go find them. So I just think, with nature and the reconnection of nature, both from the health aspects from a barefoot product, but also, you know, from, from the environmental and social responsibilities, it wasn't a mindset shift. You know, I like many people who probably listen to this podcast spend so much time and energy, just trying to get businesses that I work for to give a fuck. But I didn't have to do that with Vivo Barefoot effort, the care factor and the want and the desire and the culture was already there. So our limits to what we can achieve on withhold. And by having to go through that, hey, I'm going to I know you mentioned Delhi, you know why we're still arguing about whether climate change is real. You know, we don't have to go through that effort. I don't have to come up with businesses to convince them that there's a payoff to invest in sustainability. Like none of that. Yes. You know, I'm a director of sustainability. I sit on a board of a company and I have no ROI. So you know, how do I have a budget, that is only 40 million on a good year?

12:46
So with that, and with such a wide remit, coming into business, what was the first things that you did? When you know, you've got so much to be able to do what what did you do first?

13:12
Yeah, so Galahad who is our CEO and I agreed to three year contract. So for the first year, I spend all my time with product and sourcing, the second year, which I'm in now I sit within the finance and human resources people part of the business. And then the third year will be with marketing and commercial. So in theory, I will be successful if I make myself redundant, I brought three people with me. Um, so I had a team of five in sustainability last year, they've all gone into separate functions across the business now. And they no longer report to me, I've got a new couple of people, because I'm going to be about four or five people in the sustainability team. Now, I'm building the functions and building legacy and then putting processes in place, and then I basically get out. And it's a kind of mixture of the best of what we had in terms of standards and initiatives, in terms of sustainability, and also how can we create new things? And how can we kind of make those things come to life? So we definitely have looked to guidance like the OECD due diligence, best practice framework, like the core, like UTI's base code, the human vibes, like the FaCS materials index, although I have lots of problems with that, but there's still good stuff in it. So we're taking out of it, the Higg, index, ZDHCS chemical standards, all of these types of things, but we probably only ever take about 10 or 20% of each of those things that we think are worthy of kind of going forward in the future in this industry and that also a small business is capable of taking on you can't have really rigorous audit procedures, being someone who's one third the size of your supplier. Like it just doesn't make any sense. So and then basically, we're now in a point about halfway through, where we're supercharging everyone individually to be their own kind of sustainability leaders. So we're working with regenerative leadership consultants, Laura Storm and Giles Hutchins really closely on embedding regenerative thinking into their mindsets with everyone in every function, we take six people down at a time, and we put them in the forest, and we do all this stuff, kind of getting them to kind of think big picture and, and really feel empowered and enabled. And yeah, that's kind of you know, we're just about to release our first integrated annual report where, you know, for a business outside of the 69 employees, it's completely unheard of, but we have worked really closely with john Elkington to bring that to life. By really closely, I mean, not really closely, but definitely read his books inside out. We had him on our podcast a few weeks ago. And yeah, that's your question.

16:07
Yeah, it does. It does. I mean, it's just shows how complicated it is, really, and what it is that you can do. And I think the fact that you have, the way that your contract has been designed, where you, you are actually working in stages across the whole business, just shows that complexity that exists.

16:27
I mean, I wish more people could do it. Like it so much more sense for people to be constantly shifting and learning and moving and changing, I think we just have so much less irritation around salary increases and promotions and board, give me more work, like all that conventional corporate rubbish will go out the door, as soon as you allow people to just, you know, move around the business and out, you know, get rid of those silos, and just everyone can use their skills in whatever way they can in an organisation to make it an ecosystem that's functioning and, and cross collaborating and pollinating. And, and, you know, I think there's a few businesses like that. Now, Spotify, I think is one of them, ironically. And I just think that they're like the model of the future, honestly.

17:15
It's funny, we've just taken on someone, and one of the questions I got asked was, I would like to have a description, job description. And I was like, I don't think we've got one, anyone I've run, he kind of just go on. And it's like, you say, just do it, you've got a job title. But that's kind of fairly, I call myself a consultant, when I go to thing is, you know, conferences and stuff where I'm speaking at different places, I just have consultant on there, because I don't really know what to call myself. Yeah, definitely not putting Managing Director, but kind of sends the heebie jeebies through me, I absolutely hate that. But, and it goes back to actually, if you're all on the same page, and you're all trying to deliver the same thing, then it doesn't really matter what you do, because you're gonna help each other, aren't you?

18:07
I mean, I used to think, so I worked for Primark who's one of the decision, you know, kind of the smaller companies of associated British foods, who's one of the biggest companies you've never heard of in the world, and they own you know, basically every single kind of food and commodity based product that comes out of the UK. And a lot of the rest of the world they like, you know, ultimately owners of Selfridges, and Fortnum & Mason, all that kind of stuff in Primark, although a big cash cow for them is ultimately just one of their portfolio. And I used to get really angry that they didn't have some kind of strategy coming from headquarters that said, in three or five or 10 years time, we want to be this, we want to know this, we want you to do this or meet this. And that they left it to, you know, buyers in Primark to take responsibility for what they're doing to the planet. And whether or not you know, we did calculations that showed that Primark probably had, at best five years left to exist on the cotton volumes that they were requiring from the planet. And we could never seem to get that into their heads because their buyers and they just don't react. So they're not, they're not ever thinking in the future in order to plan what they do on their day job. So I used to get very, very frustrated that ABF wasn't giving that strategy. And then I thought about it, and I thought actually, you know - they they don't have a sustainability tinge or they do do well is say ABF is about x, our values are x, y and z. And that's all we do. The rest of it's up to you. And ultimately, I guess it made them very successful. And I think Vivo in a completely different context does that where they have a mission, they have values but how you get to that utopian vision is really fluid. And it's up to the people that know really, where they can go and where the limits are and how to enable actors to come on that journey with them. And there's a really good book this has been released actually talks a lot about this as well. It's by Yanis Varoufakis. But very - very interesting book.

20:25
Okay, well, we'll put that link on the podcast notes. At the end of it. From a shoe making, you've got vegan shoes, and you've got non-vegan shoes. Meat shoes, I guess? I don't know. What not a non-vegan shoes is called? Can you talk us through that? I mean, what that there's such complexity with that, and the carbon emissions. And I know, you asked me to talk about carbon emissions within the fashion industry. So I'm kind of bringing that in at the same time.

21:08
Cool, so I think to start off to answer kind of the big pictures for both of them. Basically, the fashion industry has a chronic problem with misused and misrepresentation of data. So I said early on in the podcast, that the reality of the amount of people that actually get to go to those lower tiers in a supply chain, is extremely low. And so the footwear industry is even worse than apparel, because on a standard shoe product, you can have up to 100-120 different components. So if you think each of those components in a shoe, have their own supply chains, and in a typical supply chain, you probably have between 5 or 10 different factories, so you'd have a finished product factory where they kind of do the last stitching or, or packaging, whatever, you'd have warehouses, you would have material mills, you'd have washing units, you'd have dyeing units, you'd have chemical treatment facilities, you know, you name it, there's lots of different factories and that supply chain. So to get, I mean, this is going to get quite technical, I think for some listeners, but I'm sure you're with me and and a lot of the people that are interested in this specifically, to get primary data, to be able to say, yes, this factory uses this, this energy from this grid. Because in India, you find a lot of the energy use is actually solar, because they're just so far apart, that they don't have a way to connect to the grid. So it's renewable before before they even started. Whereas in China, you're coal based. So what you're using from the grid is extremely important here, because if you say this T-shirt has this carbon footprint, how can you possibly compare a T-shirt that's made in India from solar energy to a T-shirt made in China from coal energy, on the same this T-shirt equals x, this cotton t-shirt equals x. So I mean, if you start there, and then you extrapolate all the different factories that are all using different energy from different grids and using different machinery, different processes, so they all have different energy footprints, and then you just have this like crazy generalisation of such a few amount of test points, because so few lifecycle analysis has been done in this industry. To come to conclusions that then get used to say, this shoe or this T-shirt is carbon negative, or some crap like that. And all the data is mostly taken from secondary sources. So some poor PhD or master's student has gone and found whatever data they can find, to come to a conclusion about the footprint of the shoe or poor material. And that just keeps getting quoted and recorded and recorded and recorded to the point where no one even knows the truth anymore. And I think that the development has been great, but we don't have enough people questioning the validity of what the statements that are being made by brands and therefore by proxy being believed by consumers, you know, you and I, everyone else that buys these products.

24:19
And so to answer your question around vegan. Vegan leather, it's one of those things where that for lots of - you had two different kind of categories of vegan people. So you've got the vegan people that just like love animals and don't want to see animals being harmed, right. So we already know we need to cater for them because they just aren't going to interact with the animal world regardless of whether or not it's better for the planet. Then you've got the other side of the vegan community which genuinely believes from data - that is a lot true but misrepresented - That meat is the devil for the planet and therefore leather by proxies the devil for the planet. And now Vivo Barefoot's got a very strong policy on this, we absolutely are against intensive agriculture. So that side of the thing we don't deal with, we only use wild hog leather now 100% wild hyde leather, which is basically grown in, you know, small communities cooperative run initiatives in Thailand and Ethiopia, where a kind of Shepherd or a farmer will only have four or five cattle that will be roaming around in the forest type thing. But people kind of come to us and say, you know, how can you possibly sell leather anymore, it's actually to the point where almost every single Instagram post we make, regardless of what it's about, we'll have you know, so many comments that are saying, how can you possibly call yourself sustainable one if you're you still selling leather? And this kind of misunderstanding of a) the word sustainability but then b) vegan equals better for the planet is extremely frustrating. And it's such a sensitive conversation to have, and I get death threats all the time. Honestly, I've had DMs that say, your name is mud in the vegan community, you know, rah, rah. And it's really, really personal. And I think, aren't we on the same team? like, I ultimately love animals, and I want to protect and restore their communities and make sure that they're looked after in a really well really amazing way. But I still think that animal agriculture and regenerative ways part of the solution. And enabling that and saying, a leather product that is grown in this ethically, you know, responsibly managed way actually enables us to have a product, that means we don't use any fossil fuels, it doesn't have any nasty chemicals on it, and it has a longer life because we know that leather is still the best material for shoes. And ultimately gives you flexibility and gives you that really natural barefoot feeling. You know, we feel really strongly that we're going to stick by ourselves on that one. And we know that 99% of brands cave and just go right? Well, you know what, we just pay a tonne of money to the Leaping Bunny, or Peta organisations and get that certificate and just use plastic and toxic chemicals. And we just aren't going to do that we're just not going to cave, you know, for really, really strongly about that one.

25:08
That's, I think, highlights such an important issue on just knowledge and understanding and trying to, because how is the average consumer meant to understand what it is that they should be doing? I mean, let's face it, we get told that we shouldn't, we shouldn't use plastic bags. But yet, there's more energy that goes into making the paper bag that can only be used once. We've had that conversation earlier on before the podcast, be great to carry out that on. But that's not where I want to go now. But it's just we are told so many conflicting things. And there is no area that we can go to or there is no source of rights or assets. And I think that's kind of what it is, isn't it? There is no silver bullets.

28:19
Where can we go? And the fact you talked about having your cows are in a smaller community in areas of the world that is regenerative and it's good. Now, obviously, a company like Primark couldn't do that, because they sell too much. And therefore, one size doesn't fit all. And what I'm trying to say is, I mean, will Vivo Barefoot become too big at one point where you have to start to change the way you do things?Would you become vegan? What's, I guess I'm not asking you to answer that. But I just, it's confusing.

29:24
I think that's a really, really good point because it comes back to the true definition of the word sustainable, right? I mean, sustainability isn't just all about having a material that's slightly less impact on you know, has slightly less GHG emissions than that, you know, Joe Blow next door, I think it's about the fact that you have to temper growth with the you know, the ability, the resources, the limits the planet and if we can't grow and scale how we do business, which by the way, by no stretch of the imagination is perfect and we're very honest about that. Then we can't grow, and we just can't do that we'll have to shift and change. And we're already starting to go into ways now to grow what is effectively a very passionate community of customers in non product based ways. So we've moved into education, and online experiences and offline experiences. So we've now started to open up, we've gone into partnership with Wild Human where we're opening, bushcraft survival, nature can be connection, activities, and we're going to just expand that. And we're really starting to look down what we call the platform revolution mode, which is basically where you start thinking about Uberization of what it is that you sell. So how can we sell these barefoot products so that they're always in life, in one sense, their material and their resource and their value is always kind of circulating around. So re-vivo, which is our you know, the world's first ecommerce platform for refurbished and recycled footwear, barefoot footwear, that's the start of that. But then we're going to keep going down membership subscription, you know, biodegradability, pathways, all those kinds of things, again, just going to get bigger and bigger. But I think I want to come back to even the fact that, you know, you say there's no magic pill to the customer. But we're also not doing enough encouraging the customer to just keep asking questions. And for me, if I was the kind of average person just wanting to do the right thing, buying clothing and footwear for myself and my family. The one thing I always be looking for is literally what I can see with my eyes. So if you're believing some text that a brand is put on a social media post or a website, I just wouldn't do that I would I'd be looking for authentic conversations, authentic video, authentic caught, you know, just stories from the supply chain of the individuals that are making these things, fashion revolutions doing a really amazing job of that. And I'd be looking for all the amazing organisations out, they're like, Good on you that are doing ranking. They know, they know what brands are actually doing really well and which ones are and they rank the brand. So you can go to those places you can set you can say, right, this is important to me, or this is important to me, how can I make my choice? And I think there are lots of avenues and tools to use.

32:26
I think that says what you just said was what's important to me. And that's what makes it slightly more complicated, is what's important to me, is actually possibly not so important to you. Yeah. And you as a brand have to deal with both of us.

32:44
Yeah, absolutely nothing. I think that's again, why it's so important that beaver barefoot has such a good staunch resolution to stay true to their own ethics, because it's a little bit like, you know, if it doesn't work for you, then go and buy from a Nike or go and buy from a Adidas because we're not going to try and cater to every single customer like we, we see ourselves as being at the upper echelons of knowing that there is a better way to do business in this world. And really staying true to the fact that we can see with our eyes that we can feel with our hands and making sure that nature and we connection is always at the crux of everything that we do. If you want to believe that and you want to come on that journey, then Vivo Barefoot is by far and away the place for you and you'll be looked after. But if it's not, then that's fine. Also, we're not going to, our mission isn't to take over the world. That's not that's not what we're here to do. So, you know?

33:41
You're talking about transparency? That's, I mean, that's it in a nutshell, you're talking about transparency, which is still fairly rare in this even in this current climate and old with businesses and organisations.

33:56
Yeah, yeah. 100%. Yeah, it's an ongoing issue. I think authenticity all I have to say like the growing online social media at home do-it-yourself job is helping make what we see in here and consume slightly more authentic than ever before, which is quite positive. I think.

34:15
That's good. That's good to hear. Because FMCG has actually not fared too badly have they? Through this pandemic?

34:24
Yeah, I mean, look, Primarks, bricks and mortar. So they probably have done well things relative but they're so cash rich that it probably doesn't really matter that much. But and I don't know if you heard but they kind of refuse to pay rent as well. So you know, luxuries of the rich and powerful. But, so for example, is a really cool, sustainable fashion campaigner. I'm not going to remember her name now. I'm really sorry. I'll come back to you. I'll put in the notes. And that oh! Venetia Falconer and she has got involved in like, you know, a tik tok world. It's so not for me, but I know it's like viral at the moment and she did this thing when ASOS said there was going circular, about a month ago, where she was saying, like, what you're basically why is this bullshit, and she did this little kind of Tik Tok thing where she said, less than 1% of their range is actually recyclable. You know, and kind of pointing out the facts and not engage this whole other community, just to kind of say, you know, I know that you can't go into the research, but I can let you know that don't buy into the hype that this organisation or this brand has given you, because it's not what it seems so.

35:34
But I don't think people do we, one of the, when we recruit, and we've been recruiting quite a bit over the last six months. And one of the questions we ask is what environmental campaign have you seen in the last year that you're most impressed with? And another question - unimpressed with, and I'm not going to mention the company, I guess I could. But then if I'm allowed to the, but there was a company that said that they could bring back clothes into the shop. And they had this whole sustainability thing around it. I would say that 70% of these graduates that are educated on sustainability, because they want to be sustainability consultants, were saying, What a load of rubbish, that's not right. It's, we know that they are literally just talking. And so you just think, Wow! Does that company realise that actually, they're almost making it worse for themselves by doing what they're doing. Because the people that know. And actually, I brought it up in a few of the interviews and ask them why they thought in there they are, you know, they're 22 years old, they are the market, the target market, and if the target market are going - rubbish, that's not true, they've really got to start to look at their sustainability agenda.

37:07
That's so rejuvenating to hear, honestly, I'm like, glad to hear that I don't have a tonne of friends and family in this country. And I like, you know, I get bit mucked up sometimes into thinking that the youth I see out in the streets of Slough correlate with the rest of the dynamic. So it's quite nice actually, to hear you say that. I'm really glad you brought it up, actually, because one of the things that I get asked a lot is how do I kind of wake up every day, and do what I do? Being not always everyone's cup of tea. And, and I think that, you know, one of the big things to me is, I don't go for quantity of feedback, I go for quality. And last week, it was announced that boo hoo, who, as I'm sure you're aware, you know, fast fashion, just everything unsustainable you could ever imagine in the world. And they have hired a responsibility director. And the responsibility director is the commercial buying head from Primark, I worked with him. And he's the kind of guy that honestly couldn't have given a crap about anything unless it's going to make him money. I get that to a certain degree. But when it then comes at the loss of authenticity, and you're hoodwinking, effectively millions of people around the world by convincing them that something is sustainable, but it's not. That's where the line is drawn for me. And he used to kind of, you know, deny all the meeting minutes and kind of never turn up when we tried to talk to him. And he really wasn't interested, right. So this person is now taking up space from someone else in a role that really could see organisation turn around, he now has no background or skills and sustainability and is sitting in a spot that we created for him. And that just makes me so mad. I put it on my LinkedIn last week, and I can't tell you, I probably get like 10 messages a day from people being like, thank you so much for saying that. I was very glad that you said it. And I just like, I love that I'm able to do that. I mean, I have no shackles working at Vivo, and I'm so unbelievably grateful for that. But I have been in organisations in the past where I really haven't been able to speak, I've been, you know, under contract, to keep my mouth shut about what I see and what I say. And the reputation fears so immense, that I wouldn't even be allowed to go and speak on a panel at a at a conference if I wanted to. And, it's just so nice to feel like I'm in the minority of people who can actually say: that's bullshit! And enable people to feel empowered by that. So, you know, that's why I wake up every day. Not that, you asekd.

37:15
Laughs.

37:16
No, but it's good to know, it's good to know. And I think and I think that's actually really, really good. I think we are, I mean, the fact that I won't tell, say the company name, H&M that, you know, that comes up all the time is actually really bad. And I can't help it, but that's what people are thinking. That's, you know, and, I don't know, it's just a sad state of affairs.

40:21
I guess it's a bit like, you know, what do we don't? What don't we know? Right, as well. And I think you've got to be conscious of that, like, is there more to this than meets the eye? But if they then fess up and give you the information, great! Like, that's the point, right? Hold them accountable, yeah?

40:36
Yeah. Yeah. And that's what I would like, as I was actually thinking about emailing them all the responses, so that they could see what is actually going on. And the fact that you said that they do actually read the letters, I'm actually going to, it was on the to-do list for one of the new people that started was to go through them all. And obviously, it would be anonymized. But it would then mean that they would actually see the feedback from their consumers.

41:02
Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, give it to me to jump on LinkedIn and give it a repost as well.

41:11
Brilliant. It's been brilliant, talking to you really, really interesting. I've just got one last thing to talk about that's actually not really about fashion. But it was a conversation that we had at the beginning. And we were talking about plastics. And we had a scientist on about two weeks ago, talking about the benefits of plastics and I get, and I actually think I should probably reword that it's not necessarily the benefits. But that plus, saying no to plastic isn't necessarily the only thing. So if you see a plastic bottle on a beach, it's not Coca Cola's fault. It is the person that left it on the beaches fault. So don't go off to Coca Cola for making the plastic and I can see the old face, this is audio only. Brilliant. And, and I think going back and listening to that podcast could actually be really interesting. And but that you brought up that actually, when you make a plastic bottle, there's a lot of chemicals that come out of that process. And as this is why it's really interesting to talk about it because of your engineering background, as well. And so you actually understand, you're not talking about it. Because, as you pointed out, a few of these issues are so heartfelt, and empathetic, and you know, they're driven by emotions, and actually, emotions shouldn't be driving arguments and decisions. Ah, you should be driven by facts and knowledge.

42:50
Yeah, oh, my god. How much longer can go on for I'll try and keep it simple. I mean, I think the starting point is that I truly believe that anything that we have made in the lab that didn't come out of the ground, or we picked off a tree, or was available to us for nature, is something we should never have brought into the world. Like, just that's probably my starting point is and the way and if any, if you understand the way the plastics are made, both from the kind of derivative of oil, which is something we should have never started pulling out of the ground, in the first place to the types of hazardous chemicals that are allowed to be used in the making of that. And, and I'm sorry, we didn't get more into chemicals, because that's definitely an area of expertise for me, in terms of talking about how a lot of people think that they're regulated, but actually the regulation isn't anywhere near good enough, hasn't caught up to all the new types of hazardous chemicals that can be made in the labs. And it's really, really hard to demonstrate cause and effect and chemicals. So in a coat, for example, that uses a poly-fluorinated chemical to get water repellency that particular chemical, and it's kind of 60 types of analytes at the moment, still growing, is not regulated because you can't show that you as a human being got cancer from wearing that coat. So the cause and effect for that particular chemical is so hard to prove. Even though there's lots of lawsuits going on in the US at moment to inter pot and individual people that are suffering that you can't put regulation on it. So unless you're a brand that said I'm not going to I'm going to outlaw that in my supply chain, which in itself is a whole other - is it even possible? It's still use all the time and what we put on our bodies and what we feel we put in a fee but he had our food in it leeches into what we eat and our body in our bloodstream now, and our systems and it's like literally scare the shit out of people that listen to this podcast around the hundreds of thousands of things that just enter our body on a daily basis from things we just think, are safe and aren't. But that's the industry that's responsible for this, you know, the industry and a Coca Cola knows they are aware of the science that they know what the oil industry fossil fuel industry is doing to our planet. And they know that that industry is working on corrupt agreements with governments that are existing because they are reliant on those organisations. We know that right? The facts are immense on that one. I've worked in it, I know that's a thing. If you're a teeny, teeny Bobby regulatory body with like a couple of really, in passionate environmental scientists working for the government in Western Australia, do who do you think's gonna win in a battle of I want to build this project on this island, that the couple of people working for the government or the ginormous fossil fuel organisation that sits in Houston, Texas, and owns more money than we could have ever imagined we print in this lifetime. So I think the power dynamics of that conversation are insane. And the only way that you can overcome that political side of it is by not buying into the fossil fuel industry. And then when you get down the plastics, whether or not it's more environmentally friendly, to actually have a plastic, which is a single material, you can keep in the loop and you can recycle. I think it's the same with everything we talked about before, it's really dependent on project by project supply chain by supply chain, whether or not it's going to be better or worse. We know in Australia, it's had massive issues with the fact that everyone thought we were recycling when we were putting things in recycling bins, but actually, it's all being shipped off to Indonesia, and just being kept in landfills or being burned for toxic waste. So I think the system and the architecture and the infrastructure hasn't been set up properly for the reality of what we could achieve with plastics to be real. I think the sub part of that is that we already have far more than enough on this planet keep fueling us forever. So Coca Cola really, at this point in time be well past the point where every single bottle is 100% PT, like the fact that it's taking them so long is a commercial thing. It's not it's not a technical capability, it's them knowing that they still have years left of the majority of consumers not giving a fuck, and the regulation not being there for the incentive from a commercial perspective for them to change. And then suddenly, you get really excited when they instal some kind of like bubbler you know, they call them bubbles in this country like a water fountain, where coke out of it or something like ASDA at the moment, it's just done a kind of plastic free packaging spaghetti kind of seeds shop thing, and oh, yeah, well, it so amazing! No, no, no, no, no, no, these organisations are huge. They have so much money and so much resource. Let's not give them a tip for like pathetic little projects, pilot projects, you know, H&M - they're just been in the news this last week, because they've put one machine in a store that can in effect, take a jumper and make a jumper again from it. And we've literally had their head of sustainability come out and say like, we're not rolling this out. It's just it's kind of, you know, it's we're just showing people what we can do. Come on. That is not good enough. Like we just don't have time. Let's stop talking about carbon for two seconds and think about resources, biodiversity, water use, pollution, like there's so many other parts of climate change, but I'm getting no airwaves because everyone can't stop talking about carbon. Yes, you know, if we see it's quite infuriating.

48:39
I can, I can. And on that note, I think I can get the time. I could carry on to honestly I could carry on talking to you for hours, you are a wealth of knowledge. And it's really refreshing to see such passion coming from you that drives such knowledge. And it's just brilliant. I mean, you can see why Vivo Barefoot are doing what they're doing, but from listening to you, and it's yeah, so thank you so much for being a part of their journey, and helping us understand more about your industry. So thank you.

49:19
Thank you very much. Very, very kind.